If an American magazine about sportbike mods was a solid idea, someone would have done it by now. Road Racer X folded. Most American motorcycle magazines are milk-toast and boring. SSB managed to beat out 2Wheel Tuner as the only 'sportbike-oriented' magazine in the states, now 2WT is gone. Unfortunately, your target audience is rather small, and won't be enough to sustain the magazine for any length of time.

Your magazine will satisfy a core group of riders, but we're the minority. As much as 'chopper builds' might not be our cup 'o tea, they are popular in the American mainstream. Out here in Virginia, most bikes are stretched, bling, and chrome. You'd sell very few mags here. You'd sell a bunch in California, but again, that's a small target group.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see your magazine idea take off. Might be best to talk with editors at SSB, and see what kind of data they'd share with you.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see your magazine idea take off. Might be best to talk with editors at SSB, and see what kind of data they'd share with you.

You're probably right, but I really don't see ssb doing that at all. I mean, c'mon, giving out info like that is like handing bullets to the enemy.

You do have a point about there not being a huge market of sport riders, and it's almost ALWAYS coastal, but I say still give it a shot. Seriously, it sounds pretty good.

I did a little research and one thing I found is that statistically, the "track" and "racing" aesthetic appeals more to people on the west coast. Your "stretched and bling" groups tend to be more east coast, with some exceptions of course.

You're probably right, but I really don't see ssb doing that at all. I mean, c'mon, giving out info like that is like handing bullets to the enemy.

You do have a point about there not being a huge market of sport riders, and it's almost ALWAYS coastal, but I say still give it a shot. Seriously, it sounds pretty good.

I did a little research and one thing I found is that statistically, the "track" and "racing" aesthetic appeals more to people on the west coast. Your "stretched and bling" groups tend to be more east coast, with some exceptions of course.

Oh, and there's also Sport Rider Mag!

I know of the Sport Rider. But I want this to be dedicated to builds, with some side notes of racing, stats, etc. I think that by dedicated the magazine to building, it will keep the audience intrigued. I know with ME at least, I'm ALWAYS intrigued on the "next update" to someone's build thread. And I'm always intrigued to see "who can top the last one".

As far as success. Since I already run one magazine, I somewhat have an idea of what I need to succeed. If I can get around 2,000 subscribers linked with good advertisers, this magazine would be considered successful financially. Again, it would be a LOT of planning and close calculations.

I subscribe to Sport Rider, SSB, Motorcyclist and a few others from the UK that cost as much as a car payment to receive monthly.

Im always bitching about the air brushed crap in SSB. The few issues I have really enjoyed featured bikes from this forum.

Personally I would pay $50 all day long for a magazine as you describe. However as said above. Limited target audience.

If you was serious about it and could find some reliable figures pointing to a large enuff reader base to make a profit.... well then I would be interested in investing a large portion into the project. That is if you began looking for an investor

Only 2000 subscribers is considered successful? I don't know crap about that industry, but getting 2000 subscribers sounds entirely doable to me.

Believe it or not, yes. Granted, I will need 1 page of advertisers per page of printed information, but most magazines these days are too full of nonsense ads (almost twice as many ads as printed info). I can't throw figures out there, but take my word for that.

I subscribe to Sport Rider, SSB, Motorcyclist and a few others from the UK that cost as much as a car payment to receive monthly.

Im always bitching about the air brushed crap in SSB. The few issues I have really enjoyed featured bikes from this forum.

Personally I would pay $50 all day long for a magazine as you describe. However as said above. Limited target audience.

If you was serious about it and could find some reliable figures pointing to a large enuff reader base to make a profit.... well then I would be interested in investing a large portion into the project. That is if you began looking for an investor

One figure I can give you is this... The general number to start a magazine is $100,000. We were our own investors when we started our current magazine, but depending on the figures I can put together for this one being nationwide, even worldwide, you might be of help sir.

Why not make it a digital only downloadable magazine, then I assume the overheads wouldn't be as much and you open up to a worldwide market?

That's what I'm trying to avoid. If it was an online magazine, people would just search the internet for their answers as opposed to paying $40 a year to log into a magazine on the computer.

By having a physical copy of the magazine, it will put in hand ALL the news, builds, updates, etc. that a person would otherwise have to search all over the internet to get.

My strategy for the magazine being more inviting than the internet is being able to have all the info, all the pictures, all the articles, in ONE book. Whereas on the internet, it's spread through the whole web. You won't have to spend time searching numerous different track updates or bike builds, they'll come to you each month in the mail.

I voted 'I would have to see it first...', because even though it definitely intrigues me, I'd want to see it before committing to it. I like the idea of the 3-month trial subscription and would be in for that. If what you say came to pass, the content featured would be a great read and inspirational.

As someone mentioned to take it online, I would second that. I subscribed to at least 3 different mags last year and it was turning into a pain with the stacks building up, so I signed up for webcopies. Sure, I could google all my problems away, but I like reading mags and I think it would make your audience grow since it's worldwide. Zinio is a great site imo. They give me a bigger discount for subscriptions than receiving a hardcopy, and saves me from having to throw out stacks of paper every month.

Your last post seems kind of moot. There are issues that everyone runs into that most likely won't be featured in that month's rag. With information so readily available, all someone has to do is Google. That is a bad thing for any mag, web or hardcopy.

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